


Hanged on the Highest Hill

by Merkwerkee



Category: Void Jumpers (Web Series)
Genre: Family Drama, Family Feels, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Vampires, necromancer - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28290453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: While doing some research, Amelia gets a bad feeling and calls her daughter. The ensuing conversation is an emotional rollercoaster, and the hills keep coming
Kudos: 1





	Hanged on the Highest Hill

Amelia marked her place in the enormous book in front of her with a silk bookmark before leaning back in her chair and removing her glasses to rub at the bridge of her nose.

Things had been… _tense_ since the last time she’d talked to Bryn. It wasn’t just the research Amelia had undertaken at the behest of her daughter, though that was part of it; the library was full of old and unsettling tomes, and many of them had been damaged in the Great War that had destroyed the old palace. The new assistant librarians Bryn had recruited on her last visit home had been of great assistance with the research, but work still progressed slowly.

No, it was the citizens of the Fire planet themselves who were the main source of the tension that crackled in the air like static. Amelia had been the Summoner for many years, true, but there were still people alive who remembered what life had been like under the thumb of her mother and grandmother. They remembered the inexplicable bursts of temper, the wild outpouring of anger that could and had resulted in summary immolations; Amelia had held a town meeting, where she put forth her reasons for the incident in the throne room, and answered their questions as best she could but…Their trust had been broken. It was in the way they moved through the halls of the palace, and the way the streets cleared whenever she went through the city to hear the grievances of the citizens. The way mothers pulled curious children into doorways to shield them from her, and shopkeepers greeted her with appalling obsequiousness where before they would have greeted her as a beloved ruler. Fear haunted the streets now, and all Amelia could do to allay it was her best to rule in a kind and just manner - erring on the side of kindness whenever possible.

If there was one positive side effect - the silver lining on the troubles that hung like a heavy bank of ashy smoke over the city - it was that Amelia now had time to devote to her daughter’s request. She still didn’t have a new parallel, but the number of formally written complaints to cross her desk in the morning had substantially decreased. The bills of lading were all punctiliously correct, and the birth and death notices no longer included invitations to namedays and wakes. Her people feared to draw her attention, and as much as that hurt in ways she hadn’t expected, it did mean she had some spare time in the evenings now to read through the old tomes and see if any of them mentioned anything about the Order Parallel.

Amelia frowned as she moved her hand up to rub at her eyes. It had been two months now since she’d sent the news of Variq’s death to the Order. His ashes still rested in a small, unmarked urn on her desk; as a faithful parallel of many years, he deserved a spot in the family vault but as a confirmed traitor of a few months she should have scattered him on the breeze to be lost in the ever-shifting sands. She hadn’t yet decided what his final fate would be; the man had been Bryn’s family as much as he had been hers, and she would postpone judgement until her daughter had a chance to make her opinion known. It could wait until after all the planets were freed.

Still, the fact remained that Cylvahl Cylesso had not responded to any of her messages. Not the one about Variq, or the one requesting new parallel candidates, or even the one carefully and politely requesting any information on the history of the Order itself. She’d tried reaching out to the new Bloom Summoner, but they hadn’t responded to any of her messages either and the Water Summoner had been a bastard to get hold of even when times were not as fraught as they were now. In desperation she’d reached out to The Company to see if they would pass a message along, but all their ships and equipment were scattered from here to the edge of the Continuum and she’d been bounced through fifteen relays before being fobbed off with a politely worded _we’ll pass it along if we find the time, now please stop asking_.

Amelia put her glasses back on with a sigh. Whatever the troubles Cylvahl Cylesso faced, she’d done all she could about the situation. Leaning forward, she removed her bookmark and was preparing to return to the difficult work of deciphering the ancient text - apparently the author had been paid by the word; they always used fifteen of them when one would have sufficed - when a _frisson_ pulsed along the currents of the vast sea that was the Continuum. 

She sat up straight and frowned; the currents of the Continuum were nothing like they’d been before the Event, but Fire, Bloom, and Water had all been restored to their previous intensities if not their previous flow patterns. All the rest were mere trickles, the ebbs and flows comprised mostly of whatever dribs and drabs occurred naturally within the freed planets and not really worth considering.

The _frisson_ happened again, and this time Amelia could _see_ the Fire of her planet waver like a candle in a soft breeze. It was just a little - more a flicker than a gutter - but the sight struck her to her core. The last time she’d seen the wellspring of Fire in the Continuum do _that_ , it had been when Variq had started to act strangely just after the Event. Fire had flickered then as well, its intensity reduced by what she now knew to have been a hole in the world swallowing it up. Bryn had sealed that breach so well that not even a scar of it remained on the planet, but if someone had found a way to re-open it…

She’d brought in the Tine of the wastes to deal with the city Tine who had bowed to Variq’s leadership. Zeem had been amenable, once he’d heard what had happened, and in one riotous night they’d cleared out all the city Tine. He’d said something about sending them to begin the cycle anew, but she hadn’t had the time to deal with it then because he’d also mentioned that some had escaped out into the desert. If one of them had found a way to re-open a wound in the sky, she needed to know when and how yesterday.

A third _frisson_ pulsed, stronger than the other two, and Amelia frowned. This didn’t quite feel local. In fact, if she looked at the waves it made in the Continuum, it almost looked like it was coming from the Blight planet.

_Where Bryn was now._

Dread was a heavy weight in her gut as Amelia reached over to push the quick-call button on the vidcomm nearby. Once upon a time, that button would have instantly connected her to Variq in his office. No longer; she’d rebound it to Haven’s comm signal after Bryn had…after Bryn had gotten off the Water planet and had had no reason to change it since. The screen flicked on to the _connecting now_ image, and after a few moments XK-37 came into view. The robot was currently serving as communications officer aboard Haven; they were calm and polite, and effortlessly competent in a way that reminded her of Variq in his heyday. She’d strongly considered buying a work contract for the ‘bot if the Order Parallel never got back to her; even with her reduced workload, she could still use the help.

“Summoner Amelia,” XK-37 said politely, helm bobbing in a polite half-bow that Amelia returned.

“Exkay. I need to speak with my daughter, please.” Another _frisson_ ran through the Continuum, and her concern intensified. “Both audio and video.”

XK-37 worked at a few controls that were offscreen, and Amelia had the distinct impression of surprise radiating from the robot - though their expression never changed. “Your daughter is not presently aboard the Haven; however, power fluctuations in the shield around the Blight planet has made communication possible with the ground team. I can try to connect you, if you like.” They looked faintly pained as another readout flashed a red light in their optics. “Though I cannot, unfortunately, guarantee call quality.”

Amelia nodded, leaning back in her chair. “Whatever you can do, I would be most grateful Exkay. I cannot blame you for any call distortions that are outside your realm of control.”

XK-37 gave another bow - this one distinctly pleased - and the screen once again flickered to the _connecting now_ image.

It stayed on that image for several minutes, long enough that Amelia returned to her reading. The passage she was currently trying to decipher seemed to be speaking about Summoners past, and the relationship they’d had to their parallels. _And in this way didst the summon'rs of fusty taketh ‘pon themselves trustw'rthy leigemen to balance and focus of their pow'rs; still, some wast not satisfyed with m’re balance, and did seek to bindeth to themselves s'rvants of pow'r, yond those gents couldst taketh through the bond and useth f'r their owneth evil purposes._

“Hi mom!”

The slightly-muffled voice of her daughter rang out in the small library, and Amelia looked up into….the top half of her daughter’s face. Strange. Still, she couldn’t help the overwhelming sense of _relief_ that coursed through her. Bryn appeared to be alive and relatively unharmed; the situation couldn’t be too dire yet.

“Bryn! Bryn, is everything okay?”

“Um. Uh. Ummmm…No. Yeah, yeah…I don’t know.”

Amelia could feel concern etch itself across her brow. Bryn wouldn’t take her hand off the bottom half of her face, which accounted for the slight muffling, but it was odd. Bryn had been raised to be the next Summoner of the Fire planet, and had an impeccable set of manners. She normally used rudeness to enforce her point - to get the last word, to show her displeasure what whatever was going on, and any number of other petty reasons. For her to be rude now didn’t make sense.

“What’s wrong?”

“Things are weird down here, I don’t like it.” Bryn’s voice was high in a way that Amelia hadn’t heard since she’d grown out of her whining phase several years ago.

“Get your hand away from your face while you’re speaking to me; it’s bad manners and I raised you better than that. You’re a _Summoner_.” Amelia’s voice cracked out slightly more harshly than she’d intended, but heavy dread was making a stone-like reappearance in her gut. At least her daughter didn’t argue; Bryn pulled her hand away from her face with an exasperated eyeroll and a pout hovering around her lips that Amelia elected to ignore. The news she had to impart was too important. “Bryn, I just felt a bizarre disturbance in the magic of the Fire planet. I feel like my powers are lessening - it’s really very minor, but I’ve never really felt anything like it except when that rift was open on this planet.” She could see Bryn alternately pursing her lips and chewing on them - an odd combination. “Are you okay?”

“Yr pwrs r lessning?” Bryn asked, keeping her lips nearly all the way closed.

Amelia frowned. “A little bit. What is _wrong_ with you?” It was an extremely rude question, but with all the current events it slipped out almost without her consent and with more force than she’d meant to use. Bryn was acting far too strangely - almost like the time she’d brought home a lamb from one of the farms and endeavored to keep it hidden in her room. Amelia knew she was hiding _something_ , and she dreaded to find out what. “Is everything okay?”

“Noooo I have _vampire teeth_ ,” Bryn wailed, opening her mouth fully for the first time since the call had started.

“By the Continuum!” The oath was drawn almost involuntarily from the older Summoner as bright white fangs caught whatever light was in the room her daughter stood in. Each one was almost a quarter-inch long, extending past the line of her normal teeth and wickedly sharp.

“Mom, it suuuuucks! And I ate Danny Delvido’s leg!” Big fat tears slid down Bryn’s face as she looked at her mother with an expression Amelia knew so well. She’d seen it dozens of times before, when Bryn’s insatiable curiosity had mixed with her natural friendliness and headstrong inclination to get her into trouble that only her mother could get her out of.

But this time Amelia was worlds away, and there was nothing she could do over a vidcomm call, no magic she had that could reach so far and lift the curse on her daughter.

“Oh _Bryn_ …” Her voice was soft as her heart broke, just a little. Her little girl was in trouble, and was asking for her help, and there was nothing she could do. Then the rest of Bryn’s words caught up to her. “ _Please_ don’t tell me that you’ve created a thrall,” she definitely did not beg. Thralls were anchors for the vampire curse, and creating one would make it that much harder to pull the curse out of Bryn. She looked sharply at her daughter. “Are you creating thralls? Are you a vampiress lor- lady?”

Bryn looked horrified. “No, no there was like, a vampire that popped out at the beginning of this mission, and I tried to like, distract it so it didn’t eat my friends and then it bit me and now I’m stuck cursed as a vampire and if I don’t get any blood really soon I don’t know what’s gonna happen. It’s a nightmare!” She huffed a little, then grimaced. “And I can’t _talk properly_!”

“Truly, the least of your worries Bryn,” Amelia replied absently as her mind raced. Vampires didn’t tend to lurk in swamps; they needed human blood to continue their existence and so stayed near their source of sustenance. Plus most of them were comfort-loving creatures that loved the convenience of the city. Or so she’d read in one of her previous books, though the section on vampires had been small. It had talked more about the psycho-magical bonds between vampire and thrall, and compared it to the type of bond a trained parallel could establish with a Summoner - which was why she’d even glanced through it in the first place. “Look, I didn’t feel the need to warn you about vampires because their population has been relatively small on that planet for hundreds of years.”

The Blight planet had been inimical to all forms of life for as long as Amelia had been Summoner; when the vampires’ food source - humans - had begun to die out, their numbers had dwindled as well until maybe a few dozen remained on the _entire planet_. Caepio had complained of them at the last Council meeting, but his concerns had been dismissed by the very reasonable argument that only robots flew the cargo haulers to his planet anyway and they were immune to vampirism and vampire magic. Caepio hadn’t been happy, but the motion to eradicate them had been tabled in favor of negotiations over food exports from the Bloom planet and it hadn’t come up again.

“Yeah, we ran into a couple more - one of them had a love affair with a werewolf! Shit’s _weird_ down here.”

“Werewolf!” Amelia couldn’t even bring herself to chide Bryn over her choice of language. If vampires were rare, werewolves were _extinct_. They hadn’t been a major predator of humans, but when the swamps overtook the farms the last of the packs had disappeared into the muck and nobody had heard of any sightings since. For even one to show up _now_ \- Amelia could only be glad that none of Bryn’s friends had been injured. Lycanthropy was much harder to get rid of than vampirism was, and harder on the infected person according to the stories. Those 'cured’ of lycanthropy had reported strange symptoms for years afterward, and often underwent extreme shifts in personality.

Bryn seemed morbidly delighted by her mother’s surprise. “Yeah, we saw a werewolf too. And, uhm, uh, skeleton unicorns, and those zappy crocodile things,” Amelia opened her mouth to interject but Bryn plowed forward, oblivious “can’t remember what they’re called - just a whole bunch of stuff. It’s _weird_. Caepio has gone off the rails, completely off the rails. He is draining all the power from the planet, I don’t know where it’s going. And he’s, he’s made things better, and then he’s hiding in this dungeon-pit-thing, and he’s making us do all these ten trials to try and gain immortality to beat him. I don’t know what to do, I mean we’re just going with it. We did some WWE-style wrestling.” Bryn finally ran out of steam, and the silence hung heavy between them for a few moments.

Amelia sat up and carefully took off her glasses to set them down beside the book she’d been reading. “Bryn, you’ve just told me about a lot of different things - most of which are pretty wild.” Bryn laughed and ducked her head, but Amelia carried on without allowing her time to interrupt. “I am going to need time to digest most of it.”

“Okay,” Bryn said quietly, looking slightly dismayed.

“If there are cursed creatures - multiple of them - something is definitely happening and Caepio must be behind it.” Caepio wasn’t particularly powerful as far as Summoners went - his powers took time to work, and frequently did so at an underwhelming level - but he was still leagues better than any non-Summoner magic users that the Blight planet had ever produced. 

“There are very few on Blight who can use magic at all. Summoners are usually…Their families are usually small because they…” Planets only had so much magic they could give, and Summoners always bred true. She’d been very lucky to carry Bryn to term; Summoners needed magic to survive just as much as they needed food or air and if there wasn’t enough magic to go around it _always_ went to the oldest Summoner first.

Still, Bryn - hopefully - wouldn’t need to worry about it any time soon. “It doesn’t matter. Look, what’s important is - if Caepio is draining the power from the planet, he might be under the influence of that force. The one that took over…” She couldn’t say his name, even now; the wound was still too fresh. “…my Parallel.” She resolutely did not look over to where the small urn gleamed dully in the low light. “Could Caepio be under the influence of this…Malice?”

Bryn’s brows came together as a thoughtful expression crossed her face. “I don’t…I don’t think so. From what I understand, Caepio blocked the Malice, and the Malice is really upset about it.”

That statement was disturbing on several levels. How did her daughter know that the Malice was upset about anything? Was she speaking to it? Was it trying to do things to her or her friends? Then, too, there was the implication that Caepio had resisted the Malice - that the Malice resistible, even by someone like _Ezra Caepio_. Her eyes slid over to the little urn on her desk. Variq had been twice the man Caepio was; how come he had succumbed? What had the Malice _done_ to him to corrupt him so?

She pushed the thought away and focused back on Bryn. “Well, whatever he’s doing is affecting magic on a very large scale. If we’re feeling it here on this planet, he might’ve tapped into a primary current of the -” she saw Bryn shaking her head in confusion and paused to explain. “The way that the Continuum spreads energy through the system.” Bryn nodded, and Amelia nodded back. “Now tell me - these trials? Caepio is running these trials?”

Bryn shook her head. “No, the ghost of Schlacta…” Amelia stopped listening, the icy hand of terror suddenly gripping her heart tight. Schlacta? Her daughter was dealing with the ghost of Schlacta the Insidious??

“The ghost of Schlacta??” Amelia gasped, horror in her voice, and Bryn looked her with a puzzled expression.

“Yes, and she is _losing_ it.”

“Schlacta the Insidious???”

Bryn nodded, slowly. “That fits.”

Amelia leaned toward the vidscreen, suddenly desperate in wishing she could fly right through it to Bryn’s side. The thought of her daughter near that _monster_ was enough to make her - _her_ , the _Summoner of the Fire planet_ \- go cold. “Bryn, whatever you’re doing, whatever you _think_ Schlacta is doing, you must be very careful. Schlacta ruled Blight - I’ve only read about this, _we’ve_ only read about this. This is taught to everyone in our line as an example of what **not** to do to your people. Schlacta entangled herself with dark magic and was able to keep the planetship of Blight underneath her power for _centuries_. She terrorized that planet. Whatever is going on on that planet, ultimately is due to decisions she made hundreds of years ago that were so _devastating_ they’ve never been able to turn it back around. Schlacta the Insidious is a famous - infamous - necromancer. One of the most powerful Summoners _ever_. She was defeated a long time ago by the other four members of the Council at the time combined - three of whom _died_ in the attempt. Whatever this ghost is doing, you must. Not. Trust. It.”

Bryn seemed stunned, sputtering for a few moments before she could respond. “Okay, but - but - but - but - ” she huffed in frustration in a way that Amelia had seen hundreds of times before but which somehow had never been this endearing. “Apparently we have to go through her to get to Caepio. So,” she ended with a helpless shrug, and Amelia sighed.

“Okay. That - that sucks.”

“Yup.”

She couldn’t protect her daughter from the conniving ghost of possibly the most evil Summoner to ever have lived, so Amelia focused on the things that _could_ be fixed as her brain went on autopilot. “Look, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but being a vampire is pretty bad Bryn. And very unbecoming, especially for someone of our standing.” They were _Fire_ Summoners; light was their element, and their night was only a fraction of other planets’. Being a vampire Fire Summoner was a ludicrous idea at best. “And so I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if you dealt with it rather quickly. And if Schlacta is making you gather magical trinkets, I’m sure any number of them would be powerful enough to fuel a ritual to reverse your curse.”

Bryn looked a little dismayed, hand creeping up to cover her mouth again. “Any one - I don’t have magic any more, so I have to refer to Rex our cleric or Sam our wizard.” Amelia blinked as Bryn looked off camera for a moment before looking back. “Sam says hi, by the way.”

“Oh!” Good manners kicked in even as she tried to shake herself out of the shock that hearing her precious daughter was working WITH the Necromancer Schlacta had sent her into. “Tell him I said hello.”

“I will.”

Amelia took a deep breath and straightened up, meeting Bryn’s eyes squarely through the small screen. Her daughter was beautiful, willful, and smart as a whipcrack. _She would be okay_. “Bryn, I - I’ve seen what you can do. You’ve freed planets.” And the thought still made her heart swell with pride. “I cannot tell you how to - do the day to day work of an adventuring Summoner who’s saving places, okay? That’s something that you’re going to have to figure out on your own." 

Other parents had told her that there were some things that were beyond a parent’s ability to teach their child, and while Amelia was reasonably certain they hadn’t meant this, she was equally certain she knew the pain they’d spoken of at not being able to help when her child was suffering. "But you CANNOT trust Schlacta.”

A curl of static obscured Bryn’s expression briefly. “Okay.”

“I wish you -”

The call died in a burst of static.

“-would come home _safe._ ” Amelia slumped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Her daughter was cursed with vampirism. Her daughter was trapped in a room with the most evil Summoner ever to have lived. Her daughter couldn’t access magic right now. Her daughter had fought monsters and lived.

Amelia straightened again. She couldn’t go to the Blight planet and help her daughter directly, but there were other things she could do. Reaching out, she pulled a pad of paper close and began composing a message the Summoner of the Bloom planet could not afford to ignore. If Schlacta got loose again, it was their duty to stop her.

No matter the cost.


End file.
